A witness in the Marvin Ray Markle Jr. murder trial on Tuesday said he saw the defendant and the girl prosecutors say he killed “kissing in the back seat” of a blue Volvo station wagon as he drove away from a Nov. 15, 1982, house party on Royal Oaks Drive in Vacaville.
On the stand in Department 2 of Solano County Superior Court in Vallejo, James Zimmerman testified that he was interviewed by Vacaville police officers in July 2005 in San Jose but he didn’t recall telling the officers that he “made out” with De Anna Lynn Johnson on the night of the party.
Responding to cross-examination by Thomas A. Barrett, chief deputy of the Solano County Alternate Defender, Zimmerman, 61, said a transcript of the interview did not refresh his memory but he remembered seeing Johnson, a 14-year-old Will C. Wood Junior High student and also a resident of the Royal Oaks Drive neighborhood, “making out with other boys that night.”
From time to time stroking his foot-long, bushy white beard, Zimmerman, his shoulder-length hair pulled back into a ponytail, confirmed what he previously told Chief Deputy District Attorney Paul Sequeira, that he drove to Markle’s home, then returned to the party.
In his second day on the witness stand, Zimmerman, a member of the civil grand jury in San Bernardino County, told Sequeira that he drove Markle to his home. However, Markle, also known as “Ziggy” in 1982, did not get out of the car and Zimmerman, Markle and another passenger, Jake Callison, returned to the party.
During his cross-examination, Barrett, again citing transcript of the 2005 interview, noted Zimmerman responded to the detectives’ question about whether he was “able to commit a crime like that,” saying, “I don’t believe so.”
Investigators believe Johnson, who attended the party, was bludgeoned with a rock and strangled on or near railroad tracks near Elmira Road some time after the party. Her body was discovered Nov. 16, and investigators believe they have evidence that links Markle, then 17 but now 59, to the killing. At the time, however, there was not enough evidence to link Markle to the killing and, over the years the case went cold.
On redirect, Sequeira noted that people use different expressions to essentially say “yes” or “no,” when responding to questions, and the prosecutor said, “Some people might say, ‘Hell, no!’ “
Sequeira wondered if Zimmerman was being “equivocal” or “ambiguous” rather than answering directly, but Zimmerman calmly replied, “I’ve never been in a situation where I had to make that conscious choice.”
Later in the morning, Sequeira called Callison, a resident of Cleveland, Oklahoma, to the stand. He testified that he “stayed at the party until I got too drunk.”
He told Sequeira that he remembered “Ziggy was trying to come on to her (Johnson)” while in the car driven by Zimmerman but “didn’t think she was letting him.”
The next day, Callison said he became aware of the crime when he saw police vehicles near Elmira Road, where Johnson’s body was discovered.
On cross-examination, Barrett showed Callison a photo of Markle, and Callison, looking at it, said, “Yeah, that’s Ziggy.”
Callison admitted he did not see Markle and Johnson kissing, adding, “I could hear them. Ziggy was coming on — that’s what I was thinking.”
As a third witness, Sequeira called Joseph Silva, a resident of Erie, Michigan, to the stand. Silva was the son of the home’s owner and said Zimmerman rented a room. He recalled that the “Johnson family lived down the street” and had a daughter named De Anna.
Silva recalled the family’s Royal Oaks Drive home had a wire fence with barbed wire atop it that separated the home’s backyard from an irrigation canal.
He said he never recalled seeing anyone ever scaling the fence and barbed wire, a statement that was germane to Sequeira’s opening statement on Monday, that Markle returned to the party later in the evening with blood on his hands, telling people that he had climbed over some barbed wire.
Silva also testified that no adults were present at the party, which attracted an estimated 70 people over the course of several hours, beginning in midafternoon until 10 p.m, because his mother was hospitalized.
He recalled being interviewed again by Vacaville investigators in 2004 but did not clearly recall statements he made to them 20 years ago.
Saying he was “pretty blitzed,” or exceedingly drunk during the party, Silva, however, testified that he last saw Johnson “in the kitchen area.”
During his opening statement Monday, Sequeira cited Markle’s reported confessions to Johnson’s murder, among other pieces of evidence that will surface during the course of the trial.
On the other hand, Barrett’s statements and his lines of questioning appear to suggest that another person, not Markle, is responsible for Johnson’s death. His client, he said, is not guilty.
Judge Daniel Healy, who is presiding over the case, previously told jurors that the trial may take several weeks or more.
Through the years, as the case wound its way through county court, trials dates more than once were assigned, then vacated.
As previously reported, in February 2017, Markle pleaded not guilty to one count of murder in connection to Johnson’s death when he was arrested a month earlier at Kern Valley State Prison on suspicion of murder and use of a deadly weapon. At the time of his arrest, he was serving an 80-year sentence for the 2001 murder of a Biggs woman, a fact not likely to be introduced during the trial.
It was the death of Shirley Ann Pratt, 41, in Butte County, that led to Markle’s arrest in the Vacaville case. On the morning of Oct. 12, 2001, Pratt was found naked in the Oroville Wildlife area, dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the face. In July 2013, the Butte County Sheriff’s Department officers arrested Markle, who was later tried and convicted. He has remained in either state prison or county jail custody ever since.
In the Vacaville case, according to court records, on the night of Nov. 15, 1982, Johnson, attended a party near her family’s Royal Oaks Drive home. Markle, a student at Country High, at the time Vacaville Unified’s continuation school, was also at the party.
Johnson was first reported missing after her brother, another party attendee, returned home and discovered she was not there and was out past her curfew.
The next day, her body was found by a Southern Pacific Railroad employee near the tracks along Elmira Road.
The Solano County District Attorney’s Office filed its complaint against Markle on July 31, 2017, and a preliminary hearing was held on Jan. 16 and 17, 2018.
If found guilty at trial, Markle, who remains in Solano County Jail without bail, faces 25 years to life, with the possibility of more time for being a previously convicted felon.
The trial resumes at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.